A lot of modern games look immersive before they actually feel immersive. The lighting is expensive. The animations are polished. The worlds are huge. Characters blink, breathe, sweat, stumble, and stare dramatically into the middle distance. Everything looks like it should pull the player in, but somehow the experience can still feel strangely hollow. That is the problem with modern immersion...
Most games tell players who they are. You are a detective, a soldier, a thief, a hunter, a wizard, or a survivor. The problem is that being told something and feeling something are not the same thing. A game can spend hours explaining who your character is through dialogue, cutscenes, lore entries, and exposition, but if the player’s behaviour never changes, the fantasy remains superficial. They are controlling the character, not inhabiting them...
